The president of Professional Chamber of Athens (EEA)Ioannis Hatzitheodosiou, in his statements to APE-MBE, on the sidelines of the working lunch that was granted today, on the occasion of the organization of the 87th TIF in Thessaloniki (9-17/9).

Asked about what small and medium businesses and Greek professionals would expect to hear from the Greek prime minister, Mr. Hatzitheodosiou prioritized the issue of regulations and the single payment.

“We tell the government that it should look at the issue of regulations again. When of the 292,000 who could potentially get into the 36, 72 and 120 dose settings, only 27,000 were able to get in, that means something is very wrong. We are asking for a single installment so that the entrepreneur can deal with it and be consistent in their obligations regarding their financial outstandings and debts.”

Regarding the issue of liquidity, the EEA president emphasized: “We cannot have a deposit rate of 0.50% and a lending rate of 6%, 8% and 10%.” When this is high it will pass to the product and thus unfair competition is created between those who enjoy a low lending rate and others who “see” it at high levels.

In this context, he referred to his resources Recovery and Resilience Fund, saying that “the first 12.5 billion euros were given to 387 companies. The EU does not oblige us for such a distribution. It is not possible to give 15-20 million euros on average to each company, 100,000 euros can be given and thus the number of beneficiaries will be much larger”, he characteristically noted, adding that “the Greek government has no alibi regarding the aforementioned development and situation”.

For the programs NSRFthe president of the professionals of Athens asked that there not be “so many cutters, because the way it is structured, only 6.5% can be financed through NSRF”.

Referring to the difficult situation experienced by citizens and small and medium-sized businessmen, Mr. Hatzitheodosiou wondered how a Greek can go shopping when the worker is low-paid and needs 50% of his salary to buy basic necessities and survive? It is because of the unfavorable situation that according to the Athens Chamber of Commerce, “we had a 50% decrease in business turnover during the sales period and compared to the corresponding period last year”. In fact, as he explained, due to this reduction it becomes clear that “entrepreneurs will not be able to be consistent in their obligations (old and new) towards the insurance funds, the tax office and the banks and many businesses will find themselves in a dead end”, he pointed out.

“We have to look at the future of the economy as a whole”, emphasized the president of the EEA, underlining that “as it was also seen with the existence of an oligopoly in food, where five companies have 86% of the turnover in the market, this development did not benefit either consumer and society and at the same time 1,000 ovens were closed”.

Regarding the EEA’s goals, its head said that “we stubbornly insist on moving with the aim of supporting small and medium entrepreneurship, with the aim of enduring the difficult times we are going through”.

Referring to the manifestation of the extreme natural weather phenomena that occur in our country, such as fires in Evros and Rhodes, floods in Thessaly, the “unthinkable” as he described it, incident in the port of Piraeus, inhuman behavior towards a fellow citizen who lost his life unjustly, but also the violence of the fans in the center of Athens, Mr. Hadjitheodosiou stressed: “Our country is facing big issues and finally instead of taking stock we have to plan. Natural disasters will continue to occur and the question is what measures we take so that we do not reach these disasters. There should be a national strategy to prevent and deal with natural disasters and understand that nothing can be done casually.”

Regarding the economic destruction of flood and fire-affected businessmen, he expressed his position that if they are not supported “they will be lost forever. They will not be able to come back to life.” Indicatively, he said that in Rhodes, where there were fires, “those hotels that were at the center of the fires, need at least three to four years to return to a status where the tourist will go to stay in these areas. “So it becomes clear that if these entrepreneurs do not support themselves bravely, they have no future”.